Project Management and Institutional Repositories: A Case Study at University College Dublin Library

Abstract

This paper describes University College Dublin Library's participation in a series of parallel projects including building a national open access portal, Rian.ie; developing an international subject based portal, EconomistsOnline.org; and the planning, development and management of a university institutional repository (IR) service. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of the PMBOK® project management methodology. While much of the literature on IRs concentrates on critical success factors, only a few papers suggest applying standard methodologies to IR project planning, and very few papers detail the complex process of planning an IR using these methodologies. This paper addresses this gap in the literature and describes the practical experience of participating in two OAI-PMH harvesting projects at national and international levels and the effect that this has had on local IR development. Participating in the two services can be shown to have had a positive effect on all aspects of project management.